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The door clicked shut. Frank’s hand remained on the lock for a beat longer than necessary. The sound of it, that definitive, metallic click, echoed in the break room.
Dennis was mid-reach for the coffee pot. He froze. His hand hovered over the handle, then slowly retreated to his side. His back straightened, instinctively pressing against the counter edge. His Adam’s apple bobbed once.
Frank didn’t move from the door. He just stood there, chest rising and falling with a deliberate slowness that was more terrifying than shouting. His face was red, a deep, mottled crimson that crawled up from his collar and settled high in his cheeks. His jaw was set so tight the tendons in his neck stood out like cables.
And in the silence, his mind was a hurricane.
Ten months.
Ten months since Dennis had stood over Mr. Milton’s gurney, watched him seize, watched him go unresponsive under his watch. Ten months since the first time he’d proven he couldn’t be trusted with a patient’s life. Frank had been assisting Dennis on his first day as a student doctor and promised himself he’d deal with it later if it appeared again.
And now later was here.
Louie.
Frank saw him in his mind’s eye. The man’s alcoholic-breath, the apologetic half-smile when he’d come in with yet another infection, another excuse. Frank had spent years building that rapport. Years of not pushing too hard, of letting Louie come to him, of celebrating the small wins. He’d finally gotten him to agree to go to the same inpatient facility he’d gone to to address his Benzo addiction. I’ll go, Frank. I promise. Just get these kids done with my teeth and I’ll go with you.
And Dennis had left him. Alone. In a room. With his liver screaming its last warning signs that Dennis hadn’t even noticed.
Did you even look at him? Frank’s thoughts raged, the words piling up behind his teeth like bile. Did you see his eyes? Did you see the yellow? Or were you too busy being the smartest fucking person in the room to actually be a doctor?
Dennis shifted his weight. The faint scuff of his shoe against the floor. Frank tracked the sound, his gaze pinning the younger man in place. Dennis’s hands, Frank noticed, were trembling slightly at his sides. Good.
You should be scared.
Frank thought about the referral form. The one he’d filled out before discovered Louie unresponsive, in his neat handwriting, Louie’s name in all caps. He’d tucked it into his desk drawer, waiting for the right moment to bring it up. Waiting for Louie to be stable enough to make the call. He thought about how he’d have to shred it now. File a death report instead. Write another goddamn condolence card to a family that had already lost their father years ago to the bottle, and now had to bury what was left.
Your fault.
Dennis opened his mouth. Closed it. His back pressed harder against the counter. He looked, Frank, thought distantly, like a man who had just realized he was in a cage.
And you didn’t even check on him.
The thought scalded him. Not a single follow-up. Not one question to the nurses, not one glance at the chart after you rolled him to recovery. You just moved on. To the next case. The next chance to prove yourself. And Louie, kind, broken, trying-so-hard Louie, died on a bed with a failing liver you missed.
Cost him his chance.
Frank’s hands curled into fists at his sides. He could feel the old familiar heat in his chest, the thing he’d spent weeks in therapy learning to name, to cage, to breathe through. Anger is information, they’d said. It tells you what you care about.
He cared about this.
He cared about Louie, who didn’t have anyone else. He cared about the job, the one he’d nearly thrown away, the one he was trying so desperately to do right. And he cared, God help him, that the boy cowering against the counter had learned nothing.
Milton should have been your wake-up call. And instead you just… kept going. Like it didn’t happen. Like you didn’t kill a man.
Dennis swallowed again. His gaze flicked from Frank’s face to the door, then back. Calculating. Frank saw the gears turning behind those eyes, defense, deflection, some carefully worded justification already forming. He’d heard it before, in different words, different tones, from a dozen other doctors who thought they were above reproach.
Don’t. Don’t you dare explain this to me. Don’t tell me how busy you were. Don’t tell me you didn’t know. You’re a doctor. You’re supposed to know.
The silence stretched. Frank’s knuckles were white. He hadn’t moved an inch from the door, and Dennis hadn’t dared to step forward. The coffee machine gurgled softly, blissfully unaware, and somewhere in the distance a pager went off.
Frank stared.
And in his head, he said everything. He laid it out, piece by piece. The negligence, the arrogance, the second chance Dennis didn’t even realize he’d been given. He told him about Mr. Milton’s family, about Louie’s empty referral form, about the weight of a man’s life in careless hands. He told him what a disappointment he was. What a danger. What a goddamn waste of potential.
The words piled up behind his sealed lips until they had no room left to move. Until his chest ached with the pressure of them.
And then, slowly, very slowly, Frank let his fists unclench.
Dennis was still watching him, pale and rigid, waiting for the axe to fall.
Frank drew a breath. Steady. Controlled.
Dennis flinched at the sound. His back hit the corner where the counter met the wall, nowhere left to go. His hands came up slightly, palms out, a gesture that could have been surrender or self-defense.
“Frank…”
“DON’T.”
The word exploded out of him, raw and guttural, a sound that seemed to come from somewhere deeper than his chest. Dennis’s mouth snapped shut. His shoulders hunched forward involuntarily.
Frank took a step. Then another. His shadow fell over Dennis, and the younger man pressed harder into the corner like he was trying to merge with the drywall.
“You absolute…” Frank’s voice cracked on the word, his whole body trembling with the effort of containment, but containment was over now. The dam had broken. “…fucking, PUNK!”
His finger stabbed out, inches from Dennis’s face. Dennis jerked back, his head knocking softly against the wall.
“I spent YEARS on that man. YEARS.” Frank’s voice climbed, ragged and hoarse. “You know how long it took to get Louie to trust me? To trust ANY doctor here? You know how many times he walked out because someone looked at his chart and saw ‘addict’ and decided he wasn’t worth the time?”
Dennis opened his mouth.
“NO. You don’t get to talk. You don’t get to FUCKING talk right now.”
Frank was closer now. Close enough to see the shine of sweat on Dennis’s upper lip, the rapid pulse beating in his throat. Close enough to smell the cheap coffee on his breath.
“I told you to watch his fluids. I TOLD you his gums were infected, I TOLD you he was immunocompromised, I TOLD you every goddamn thing you needed to know, and you just…” Frank made a disgusted, choking sound. ”…you just nodded. Like you do. Like you know better. Like you’re already ten steps ahead and the rest of us are just slowing you down.”
Dennis’s fingers curled against the wall behind him. His knuckles were white.
“And the benzos.” Frank’s voice dropped, suddenly quiet, which was somehow worse. His eyes were bloodshot, gleaming. “You really think I don’t know what that was about? You really think I didn’t notice you bypassing my orders? Undermining me in front of my own patients?”
His hand slammed against the wall beside Dennis’s head. Dennis jumped.
“I’ve been doing this job since you were still in HIGH SCHOOL. I’ve learned more about crisis intervention than you’ll ever LEARN. And you…”, He jabbed Dennis’s chest, hard, making him recoil, “You looked at me like I was some pill-seeking JUNKIE who couldn’t be trusted with a patient’s care plan.”
Dennis swallowed. His voice was barely a whisper. “That’s not…”
“I SAID SHUT UP.”
Frank’s face was inches away now. The redness had spread, crawling down his neck, his knuckles blanched white where they pressed against the wall. His breath came in short, ragged bursts.
“Ten months ago. Mr. Milton. You were supposed to learn something, Dennis. You were supposed to walk away from that and think, ‘Maybe I need to slow down. Maybe I need to actually LOOK at my patients.’ But you didn’t. You just…” Frank made a sound of pure frustration, his free hand raking through his hair. “You just filed it away. Another data point. Another case study. Another lesson YOU didn’t need because you’re already PERFECT.”
Dennis shook his head, barely perceptible. His eyes were very wide.
“Louie had sclera. Did you notice? Did you even FUCKING NOTICE?” Frank’s voice broke upward, cracking on the word. “His belly was distended OF COURSE from the ascites. His eyes were yellow BECAUSE of sclera. He was confused, he was fatigued, he had every goddamn sign of liver failure written all over his face, and you LEFT him. You left him alone in that room, and you didn’t check. You didn’t look at his GODDAMN charts PROPERLY. You didn’t ASK around.”
Silence. Heavy. Broken only by Frank’s ragged breathing and the distant, indifferent hum of the refrigerator.
“He was going to go...” Frank said. His voice had changed, not quieter, exactly, but thinner. More frayed. “I got him to agree. Me. After everything, after all the relapses and the missed appointments and the times he lied to my face about how much he was drinking… I got him to say yes. He was going to check in. He was going to get clean.”
His hand slid slowly down the wall, leaving a faint smear of sweat on the paint.
“And you took that from him. Because you couldn’t be bothered to do your JOB.”
Dennis’s lips parted. Frank saw it coming, the explanation, the justification, the carefully constructed defense that would make this not his fault. He saw it in the way Dennis’s brow furrowed, the way his mouth started to form the first syllable.
And he couldn’t bear it.
“NO!” The word was a roar, raw and desperate. “NO, you don’t get to explain. You don’t get to tell me how ‘systemic’ it is or how ‘overwhelmed’ you were or how ‘the signs weren’t clear’… they WERE clear, Dennis. They were clear, and you MISSED them because you don’t LOOK. You don’t see patients, you see CASES. You don’t treat PEOPLE, you treat DISEASES.”
He was shouting so loudly now his throat burned. His hands were shaking. His whole body was shaking.
“Louie was a PERSON. He had a WIFE, he had KIDS who hadn’t spoken to him in six years, he still had a DOG that he fed before every ER Visit he went to, even when he couldn’t afford his own groceries. He had a LIFE. And you just…”
Frank’s voice finally gave out, collapsing into something barely audible.
”…you just let him go.”
The silence rushed back in to fill the space.
Dennis hadn’t moved. He was pressed flat against the corner, his chest rising and falling too quickly, his eyes fixed on Frank’s face like he was watching something come apart at the seams. His lower lip was trembling, slightly, almost imperceptibly. His hands had fallen to his sides.
Frank stared at him. Through him. The rage was still there, a live thing coiling in his chest, but it had nowhere left to go. He’d spent it all. Every word, every accusation, every shattered piece of grief he’d been carrying since he heard Louie’s code called overhead.
Dennis opened his mouth.
“I SAID…”
Frank’s voice was a wreck. But his eyes were still blazing.
”…DON'T.”
Dennis closed his mouth.
Frank held his gaze for one more heartbeat. Two.
The first tear slid down Dennis’s cheek and dropped off his jaw, landing silently on the linoleum.
Frank saw it. He didn’t care.
“You think crying fixes this?” His voice was shredded now, barely holding together. “You think tears make it better? Make you look like you care?”
Dennis shook his head with small, jerky movements. His breath was hitching. His chest was caving inward with each sob he tried to suppress.
“You don’t get to cry, Dennis. You don’t get to feel bad about it now. Where was this ten months ago? Where was this when Milton was having a heart attack on your watch? Where was this when Louie’s heart stopped because you couldn’t be bothered to notice his goddamn LIVER was failing?”
Dennis made a sound. Small. Wounded. His hand came up to cover his mouth, but it didn’t stop the tears. They were coming faster now, tracking down his face, dripping onto his white coat.
“You don’t give a SHIT about addicts.” Frank’s voice climbed again, ragged and raw. “You clearly NEVER have. You look at them and see weakness. You look at ME now and see...”
His voice broke. He swallowed. Pushed forward.
“I see it in your eyes, Dennis. Every time. Every time I ask for something, every time I give an opinion, every time I walk into a room you’re in. That little flicker. That little disgust. Like I’m contaminated. Like I’m less than.”
Dennis’s hand slid from his mouth to his chest, pressing there like he was trying to hold himself together. His shoulders shook.
“You do it to Cassie, too.” Frank stepped closer. Dennis flinched but didn’t move. “Four hours. I’ve been back FOUR HOURS, and she already told me. The way you talk about her and me behind our backs. The way you go to other attendings because you ‘don’t trust her advice.’ On what? Pain management? Withdrawal protocols? Things she actually KNOWS because she’s spent YEARS working on her own battle with ADDICTION while you were in UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOL?”
Dennis’s face crumpled. His hands came up, not to defend, but to grip the front of his own scrubs, twisting the fabric.
“Victoria told her. Did you know that? That your student ductor is so concerned about your BIAS that she’s warning other attendings about it?” Frank’s laugh was hollow, bitter. “You think you’re so careful. So subtle. But everyone SEES it, Dennis. Everyone knows you think you’re better than us.”
A sob escaped Dennis. High and thin. His knees seemed to buckle slightly.
“And now Louie is DEAD...”
Frank’s voice broke on the word. His eyes were burning. His vision blurred.
“DEAD, Dennis. Because you couldn’t set aside your goddamn PRIDE for five minutes and just... just see him. Just treat him like a human being instead of a teachable moment.”
A tear escaped. Frank wiped it away savagely with the back of his hand. Then another. He was crying now too, and he hated it, hated how weak it made him feel, hated that Dennis was seeing this.
“Ten months ago. Mr. Martin.” His voice cracked on the name. “What was his name, Dennis? Can you even REMEMBER? Or did you just file him under ‘lesson learned’ and move on?”
Dennis shook his head. His eyes were screwed shut. Tears leaked from the corners.
“He came in with gallstones. A goddamn GALLSTONE. And you left him alone, and he seized, and he DIED under your supervision. And you CLEARLY learned NOTHING. You changed NOTHING. You just… kept going. Kept missing the signs because you were too busy being the smartest person in the room to actually BE A DOCTOR.”
Frank was shouting again. His throat was raw. His face was wet.
“I’m filing a complaint.”
Dennis’s eyes opened. Red-rimmed. Desperate.
“I’m going to Dana, and I’m filing a formal complaint about your conduct. Your negligence. Your pattern of bias against patients with substance use disorder.” Frank’s voice was steadier now. Colder. “And she AGREED with me. She said I could give you a piece of my mind. She wanted me to. Because she’s seen it too. We’ve ALL seen it.”
Dennis made a sound like he’d been struck.
“You’re a FUCK UP, Dennis. You’re a dangerous, arrogant, incompetent fuck up, and you have no business being a doctor if you can’t learn to give a shit about the people you’re supposed to be HELPING.”
Dennis’s legs gave out.
He didn’t fall completely, the counter caught him, his hip slamming against the edge, but he slid down, crumpling, his back against the cabinet, his hands clutching at the front of his scrubs like he was trying to tear his own heart out.
“This is going to keep happening.”
Frank’s voice was quieter now. Hoarse. Exhausted.
“Until you get your head out of your ass. Until you actually LOOK at your patients and see PEOPLE. Until you stop treating addiction like a moral failing and start treating it like the DISEASE it is.”
Dennis was sobbing openly now. His whole body shook with it. His face was hidden behind his hands, but his shoulders heaved, and the sounds he made were ugly and raw and completely unguarded.
“Louie trusted me,” Frank whispered. “He trusted me, and I trusted YOU, and you…”
He couldn’t finish.
Dennis’s hands dropped from his face. His expression was ruined, swollen, blotchy, his nose running, his lips parted and trembling. He looked younger than Frank had ever seen him. He looked like he was a freshman in college.
And then he moved.
Frank didn’t register it at first, his mind was still churning, still cataloguing every failure, every slight, every moment of disrespect that had led to this in just the few moments he had been back, but suddenly Dennis was there, against him, his fingers gripping the fabric of Frank’s scrubs at his chest, his face pressed into Frank’s shoulder.
He was crying. Hard. His whole body convulsed with it.
Frank blinked.
The fire inside him, the rage that had been burning since he found Louie unresponsive, since he saw Dennis standing in the break room like nothing had happened, flickered.
Sputtered.
Snuffed out.
He stood there, frozen, his arms at his sides, Dennis clinging to him like he was drowning. Like Frank was the only solid thing in a world that had suddenly tilted off its axis.
”What…”
Frank’s voice came out wrong. Confused. Lost.
Dennis just held on tighter. His fingers dug into the fabric. His shoulders shook. He was saying something, or trying to, but the words were swallowed by sobs, buried in the wet fabric of Frank’s scrubs.
Frank didn’t move.
He didn’t pull away.
He didn’t push Dennis off.
He just stood there, arms hanging uselessly at his sides, staring at the far wall, blinking slowly as the last embers of his rage guttered and died.
What the fuck.
Dennis’s grip was starting to weaken. His fingers, white-knuckled and desperate just moments ago, were beginning to slip against the sweat-damp fabric of Frank’s scrubs. His sobs had quieted from ragged, heaving gasps to something thinner, the sound of a man running on empty.
Then his knees buckled fully.
Frank watched him slide down, his back dragging against the cabinet doors, his hands leaving Frank’s chest and dragging down his sternum, his stomach, finally falling away altogether as Dennis crumpled into a heap on the floor. His legs splayed out awkwardly. His head dropped forward, chin to chest, shoulders still shaking.
Frank should have walked away. Should have unlocked the door, stepped away from the mess of Dennis on the floor, and left him there to marinate in everything Frank had just hurled at him. That’s what the rage wanted. That’s what the old Frank would have done.
But the old Frank had spent six months in rehab learning to be someone else.
He sighed. It came out heavy, weighted with something he couldn’t name.
Don’t give the kid a heart attack.
Frank lowered himself down, grunting with the effort, his knees popping in protest. He shuffled across the floor, ignoring how undignified it was, how this was absolutely not how he’d pictured this confrontation going, until his hip was against Dennis’s, until he could feel the younger man’s body shaking with each suppressed sob.
Dennis didn’t look up. His hands were limp in his lap. His chest hitched.
Frank hesitated. His hand hovered in the air between them, fingers spread, uncertain.
What are you doing?
He didn’t have an answer. His hand moved anyway.
His fingers touched Dennis’s hair. The kid flinched, but didn’t pull away. Frank scratched. Gently. Tentatively. His nails dragged slow circles against Dennis’s scalp, working through the gel-slicked strands, finding the warmth beneath.
Dennis’s breath caught.
Then, slowly, the shaking began to subside.
“I’m still mad at you,” Frank said. His voice was wrecked, barely above a whisper. “This isn’t over. This is so far from over it’s not even funny.”
Dennis nodded against his thigh. His forehead pressed harder into Frank’s pant leg.
“But you need to let this out.” Frank’s hand kept moving. Steady. Rhythmic. “You’ve been holding it in for too long. All of it. Milton. Louie. Everything you think you’re supposed to be. It’s rotting you from the inside.”
Dennis made a sound, small, wounded. His fingers twitched in his lap.
“You need to see the hospital psychiatrist.” Frank’s voice hardened slightly. “Not once. Regularly. You need to talk to someone about why you look at addicts like they’re beneath you. Why you think Cassie’s advice isn’t worth hearing. Why you can’t trust anyone else to be competent.”
Another nod. Slower this time. His body was relaxing incrementally, melting against Frank’s thigh like a cat settling into a warm spot.
“And you need to actually DO the work. Not just show up and go through the motions. You need to figure out why you are the way you are, and you need to fix it. Or so help me God, Dennis, I will make sure you never treat another patient in this hospital again.”
Dennis’s breath evened out. His shoulders, still trembling, began to still.
A wet stain was spreading across Frank’s pant leg. Warm and distinctly damp. He looked down and saw Dennis’s face pressed into his thigh, tears and snot and saliva all mingling together in an absolutely disgusting collage of human misery.
Gross.
He was definitely going to need new scrubs. His only clean pair. These were brand new, fresh from the pack, and now they were a biohazard. Dennis’s own scrubs weren’t faring much better, the front was soaked, dark patches spreading from the collar to his chest.
Frank kept scratching.
“I’m sorry...”
The words were muffled against Frank’s thigh. Mumbled. Slurred. Dennis’s voice was raw, scraped clean by twenty minutes of sobbing.
“I’m sorry… I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”
Frank didn’t respond. His fingers kept moving.
“I didn’t want to be… I didn’t mean to become…” Dennis’s voice fractured. “…this. I didn’t want to be a monster.”
Frank’s hand stilled.
“I’m a monster,” Dennis whispered. “A monster. I killed him. I killed Louie. I’m a monster, and I didn’t even see it, and I’m sorry I’m sorry I’M SORRY!”
His voice cracked upward, rising toward another sob, his body tensing
“Hey.”
Frank’s hand pressed down, firm and steady, cupping the back of Dennis’s head.
“Breathe.”
Dennis gasped. His fingers clutched at Frank’s pant leg.
“Just breathe. You’re not helping anyone if you hyperventilate.”
Dennis breathed. Ragged. Shallow. But breathing.
Frank’s thumb traced slow circles behind Dennis’s ear.
“I’m sorry,” Dennis whispered again. His voice was so small now. “I’m sorry I disrespected you. I’m sorry about the benzos. I’m sorry I didn’t listen. I’m sorry I thought… I thought I knew better. I’m sorry I made you feel like you weren’t… like you weren’t good enough. Like you weren’t a real doctor.”
Frank’s jaw tightened.
“I'm sorry...” Dennis breathed. “...You and Cassie. You both know things I don’t. You see things I don’t see. And I couldn’t admit that I needed help, so I pretended I didn’t. I pretended you were the problem.”
He laughed, a broken, hollow sound.
“I’m so stupid.”
Frank didn’t disagree.
Dennis shifted. Slowly, painfully, he pushed himself up from Frank’s lap. His movements were unsteady, his arms trembling with the effort. Frank’s hand fell away from his hair.
But Dennis didn’t stop. He kept rising, kept reaching, until his face was level with Frank’s chest, until his forehead pressed against Frank’s collarbone, until his nose was buried in the curve of Frank’s neck.
He was so close Frank could feel his breath. Hot and ragged against his skin.
“Can I make it up to you?”
Dennis’s voice was barely audible. Muffled against Frank’s throat. His fingers found Frank’s scrubs again, clutching at the fabric just below his shoulder.
“Please... Please tell me I can make it up to you. I’ll do anything. Anything. Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it. Please...”
Frank exhaled slowly. His eyes drifted closed.
“Do what I asked.”
His voice was exhausted. Heavy.
“See the psychiatrist. Do the work. Treat your patients like human beings. Trust Cassie. Trust me. Actually listen when someone tries to teach you something.”
Dennis nodded. His face pressed deeper into Frank’s neck. His nose was cold against Frank’s pulse point.
“And stop being a fucking cunt to someone who’s trying to help you.”
Dennis laughed. It was wet and broken and barely recognizable as a laugh, but it was something.
“Okay,” he whispered. “Okay.”
His head moved against Frank’s neck, nodding, nestling deeper. Seeking warmth.
Frank’s hand found its way back to Dennis’s hair.
“This doesn’t fix it,” he said quietly. “This doesn’t bring Louie back. This doesn’t undo any of the harm you’ve caused.”
Dennis nodded against his skin.
“I know,” he breathed. “I know.”
“But it’s a start.”
Dennis’s fingers tightened in Frank’s scrubs. His breath evened out. His body, still trembling, slowly began to still.
The wet stain on Frank’s pants was getting cold. His scrubs were ruined. His throat was raw. His eyes were swollen. He was sitting on the floor of the break room with a crying resident curled into his chest, and he had absolutely no idea how he was going to explain this to anyone who walked through that door.
He kept scratching Dennis’s hair.
Six months of therapy, he thought. Six Months of learning to manage my emotions and not rely on Benzos. Six Months of promises I made to myself to be better.
And the first thing I do is scream at a kid until he breaks.
The guilt sat heavy in his chest, cold and familiar.
But he needed to hear it.
He wasn’t sure if that was true. He wasn’t sure if he was telling himself that to justify the explosion, or if it was actually, genuinely the right call. He wasn’t sure of anything except that Dennis was still breathing against his neck, and his hair was softer than Frank expected, and they were both sitting in a puddle of tears and regret on the break room floor.
Dennis shifted slightly. His voice was barely audible.
“Thank you.”
Frank’s hand paused.
“For what?”
Dennis was quiet for a long moment. His thumb traced a slow, unconscious pattern against Frank’s shoulder blade.
“For not leaving.”
Frank didn’t respond.
His hand started moving again.
Dennis stirred against Frank’s chest. His breathing had evened out, the frantic hitch of his sobs reduced to occasional shuddering exhales. His grip on Frank’s scrubs had loosened, fingers now resting limply against the damp fabric.
Slowly, he pushed himself up.
His face was a wreck. Eyes swollen nearly shut, rims raw and red. His cheeks were blotchy, tear tracks cutting pale lines through the flushed skin. His nose was running. His lips were parted, trembling slightly.
But he was looking at Frank. Properly looking.
“Frank.”
His voice was hoarse. Barely above a whisper.
Frank didn’t respond. His hand had stilled on Dennis’s head, hovering uncertainly above the disheveled hair.
“Can you…” Dennis swallowed. His throat clicked. “Can you help me?”
Frank frowned.
“I’m trying to. I literally just told you what you need to do...”
“No.” Dennis shook his head, a small, quick movement. “Not just that. I mean… can you help me? Be my mentor. The way I should have let you be. The way I should have treated you from the start.”
Frank stared at him.
“I’m an addict,” he said flatly. “I got out of rehab. You literally spent the last ten months talking about me like I was contagious.”
“I know.” Dennis’s voice cracked. “I know. And I was wrong. I was so wrong about everything.”
His hand moved. Slow, tentative. His fingers found Frank’s wrist and wrapped around it gently.
“You know things I don’t know. You see things I don’t see. You spent years becoming the doctor I claim I want to be, and I couldn’t admit that I needed to learn from you.”
Frank’s jaw tightened.
“So learn. Read the books. Talk to the psychiatrist. Do the work.”
“I can’t do it alone.”
Dennis’s grip tightened. His thumb pressed against Frank’s pulse point.
“I’ve tried. I’ve been trying. Every day I tell myself I’ll be better, and every day I wake up, and I’m the same person. The same arrogant, judgmental, blind person who misses the signs and dismisses the people trying to help him.”
His eyes were wet again. Not overflowing, but glistening.
“I don’t know how to change. I don’t know where to start. And I thought… I thought if I just pretended I already knew, eventually I would. But I don’t. I don’t know anything.”
Frank was quiet for a long moment.
Dennis’s hand was warm around his wrist. His thumb kept moving, that same unconscious pattern, tracing slow circles against Frank’s skin.
“You want me to mentor you,” Frank said slowly. “After everything you just admitted. After everything, I screamed at you.”
Dennis nodded. His jaw was set, even as it trembled.
“Yes.”
Frank scoffed. It was a dry, disbelieving sound.
“Kid, I don’t even know if I should be mentoring anyone. I just spent six months learning how to not rely on drugs for an escape from all of this. I’m hardly poster boy material...”
Dennis moved Frank’s hand.
Not aggressively. Not demandingly. Gently, he lifted Frank’s hand from where it rested on his shoulder and guided it downward. Past his collarbone. Past his sternum. Until Frank’s fingers met the sharp line of Dennis’s jaw.
Dennis tilted his head. Pressed his chin into Frank’s palm.
And leaned into it.
“Like a good boy,” he mumbled. His eyes fluttered half-shut.
Frank blinked.
Dennis grunted, a low, content sound, entirely involuntary. His jaw worked against Frank’s fingers, seeking pressure. His soft skin rubbed against Frank’s palm.
“What are you?”
“Head scratches were good,” Dennis murmured. His voice was distant, dreamy. “Chin scratches are better.”
“That’s not-”
“Please...”
Frank stared at the top of Dennis’s head. With the disheveled hair, the gel was completely destroyed, strands sticking up in every direction. The way Dennis’s entire body had gone slack against him, tension bleeding out through every point of contact.
“You’re weird,” Frank said.
Dennis grunted again. His eyes were fully closed now.
Frank shook his head. His fingers moved, slow, tentative, scratching the soft skin beneath Dennis’s jaw.
Dennis made a sound that was embarrassingly close to a purr.
“This is the strangest conversation I’ve ever had,” Frank muttered. “And I once talked a man down from a ledge while wearing only one shoe because he threw the other one off.”
Dennis smiled. It was small and fragile and barely there, but it was a smile.
“Is that a yes?”
Frank was quiet for a long moment. His fingers kept moving, tracing slow arcs along Dennis’s jawline.
“It’s a ‘let’s see how the psychiatrist appointment goes’,” he said finally. “And it’s a ‘you need to apologize to Cassie properly’. And it’s a ‘you need to actually read the materials I give you and not just nod and pretend you already know everything’.”
Dennis nodded against his hand.
“And it’s a ‘you need to stop being a judgmental prick to every patient with a substance use history’.”
Another nod.
“And it’s a ‘this doesn’t erase what happened to Louie, and I’m still furious with you, and I don’t know if I can ever fully trust you again’.”
Dennis’s smile faded. His eyes opened. He looked at Frank, really looked, and nodded slowly.
“I know,” he whispered. “I know.”
Silence stretched between them.
“…But yes.”
Dennis’s breath caught.
“I’ll help you,” Frank said. His voice was gruff, reluctant, like the words were being dragged out of him with pliers. “I’ll be your mentor. God knows why. God knows if it’ll even work. But I’ll try.”
Dennis’s eyes welled up again. His hand tightened around Frank’s wrist.
“Thank you,” he breathed. “Thank you. I won’t... I promise I won’t waste this. I promise I’ll actually listen. I promise-”
“Yeah, yeah.” Frank pulled his hand away from Dennis’s jaw. “Promises are cheap. Show me with the work.”
Dennis nodded quickly. Too quickly. His whole body was vibrating with something that might have been relief.
He reached up. Caught Frank’s hand before it could retreat fully.
Pressed his lips to Frank’s knuckles.
It was soft. Brief. Barely a kiss at all, just a press of warm, dry lips against weathered skin.
“Thank you,” Dennis whispered against Frank’s fingers. “For showing me the errors of my ways. For not giving up on me. For being better than I deserve.”
Frank stared at him.
His hand was very warm where Dennis had kissed it.
“…We need to change our scrubs,” he said.
Dennis blinked. Looked down at himself. At the dark, wet stain spreading across his chest, the crumpled fabric, the general state of absolute dishevelment.
“Oh,” he said. “Yes. Right.”
Frank extracted himself carefully. His knees screamed in protest as he pushed himself up off the floor. His pant leg was cold, damp, and disgusting. He could feel the moisture seeping against his skin.
Definitely need new scrubs.
He limped to the door. His hand found the lock. Turned it.
The click was softer this time.
He pulled the door open and found Dana standing in the hallway, clipboard in hand, expression carefully neutral. Her eyes swept over him, the ruined scrubs, the red-rimmed eyes, the general air of having been through something, and then over his shoulder, where Dennis was slowly, shakily pulling himself up off the floor.
She raised an eyebrow.
Frank nodded once.
Dana nodded back. Her expression shifted, just slightly, just enough, from wary vigilance to something approaching cautious relief.
She didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to.
Frank turned back to Dennis.
“You coming?”
Dennis was on his feet now, swaying slightly. His scrubs were destroyed. His hair was a disaster. His face was blotchy and swollen and absolutely wrecked.
He looked at Frank.
“Yes,” he said. His voice was steadier now. Still raw, still fragile, but steadier. “Yes. I’m coming.”
He walked toward the door. Toward Frank.
Frank stepped aside to let him through.
“Scrubs machine is down the hall,” he said. “You still take a medium?”
Dennis blinked. Something flickered across his face, surprise, maybe. That Frank would remember.
“…Yes,” he said quietly. “Medium.”
Frank nodded.
“Try not to get snot on these ones.”
Dennis laughed. It was wet and broken and still barely recognizable as a laugh, but it was real.
“I’ll try.”
Frank started walking. After a moment, Dennis followed.